Advanced Senior English is for high school homeschoolers who are seniors and are college-bound. Students entering this class must have successfully completed at least one AP English class or a dual-enrolled English class.

 

Students in ASE are skillful writers, and they want to hone their edge as they prepare for college. With their high school journey coming to an end, they also want to enjoy the flexibility that homeschooling offers, so this asynchronous college-prep class has been designed with choice and relevance in mind.

 

Class Details

• Advanced Senior English | Asynchronous full-year class

• Tuition & Resources:

  • Tuition: $775

  • See all required class reading and resources HERE.

• Instructor: Marcy Swisher

• Dates: August 26, 2024 to May 4, 2025.​

• Grade level: College-bound seniors​

  • Prerequisite: Successful completion of an AP English Lit or AP English Lang class or a dual enrolled community college English class

    • If your student has not taken an AP or CC English class but has successfully completed a rigorous English class at that level, we will just request representative writing samples to ensure a good fit. Please contact us.

• Class size: 10-12

• See our FAQ for:

  • age/grade guidelines, prerequisites, and class fit recommendations

  • a complete list of days, times, and breaks

  • a list of CA charter schools where this course is a-g approved

• ​Format:

  • Students share an interactive online classroom.

    While this class is highly active, all interaction takes place in a text-based fashion on the class website.

• Average weekly time estimate: 8-12 hours

• This course is NCAA-approved.

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.College Apps

College applications loom large for seniors in the fall, so you’ll start off reading a resource that will provide a no-nonsense framework for how to work on your college essay. Chances are good that you’ll be applying to several different colleges and writing multiple essays.

• In the first six weeks of class, you’ll peruse several personal essays, briefly discussing their strengths with your classmates.

• Your instructor will be an active resource for you, helping you stay accountable to your planning and completion deadlines, and acting as a sounding board for fine-tuning improvements.

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The Choice is Yours

You and your classmates will then move on to choice-driven reading and a variety of writing genres. You will construct your own "bucket list" of books that you'd like to read before you finish high school--choosing books to fit within each of these fiction and non-fiction categories:

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• Non-Fiction

  • Biography or Memoir

  • Psychology or Sociology

  • Science or History

  • Current Issue

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•  Fiction

  • American or British Novel

  • World Literature Novel

  • Contemporary Novel

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•   Fiction or Non-Fiction

  • Pulitzer Prize or National Book Award Winner/Finalist

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You'll have the opportunity to dive in and choose your own reading list! And if you'd like a little bit of help, that will be offered. While you and your classmates will be reading different books throughout the year, you'll be reading from the same category of books at any given time. There will be opportunities to briefly share and compare in online forums.​

 

Refresh and Reinforce

After you finish reading each of your books, you'll write a paper that is connected to it--with the genres and formats changing, essay to essay.

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• Eight different kinds of writing assignments (approximately one per month) are planned to help you reinforce what you know and explore writing modes you may not yet have seen.

• Colleges--and academic disciplines within them--have their own formatting and citation preferences, so you'll get the chance to explore and practice the nuts and bolts of MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian conventions.

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It's unlikely you'll need help navigating the grammar weeds, but your instructor will "meet you" wherever you are in your writing journey to help you strengthen your skills and rise to the next level.

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A Year-Long Conversation

Your Moodle classroom will be home base. That's where you'll receive instruction and interact with your teacher and classmates. In weekly, on-going text-based discussion forums you can look forward to meeting and getting to know other college-bound seniors from across the country who have a diverse array of interests and backgrounds

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• You will participate in weekly conversations that zoom in on current news and issues that are important to you.

• You'll draw your topics from the major newspapers and nationally-renowned magazines that you and your classmates choose, individually, to read. You'll pass the baton, week to week, to other classmates who will offer up their own news or informational articles for class consideration.

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While the conversation with your classmates will be active, forum participation expectations will be set at a reasonable level so that the time commitment is relatively small and the interaction welcome and enjoyable.

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Advanced Senior English has been designed to maximize a core benefit of home schooling --> choice. Join a class of interesting, talented students from across the country, and tailor your senior year of English to focus on what matters most to you! 

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